


Home Is...

by Cephy



Series: Home Is Where The Heart Is [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Acceptance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Modification, Family, Hollow Bastion, Homecoming, Reunions, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephy/pseuds/Cephy
Summary: The world ends, again. And then it is remade.





	

Cloud’s only warning was a brief, puzzled noise from Phil and a flicker of light across the sky, before the stadium courtyard around him gave a sickening shudder and then winked out entirely. Something hooked into his gut and _pulled_ , and Cloud just barely avoided falling to his knees, strung out by vertigo, with that damned wing flapping madly behind him to no effect. For a moment he wasn’t sure there was anything solid beneath his feet.

And then there was. Grey stone, both the street and the walls lining it, broken by quaint lamp sconces and carefully pruned trees. There were awnings above the doors and patterned curtains peeking through the windows and it was all-- familiar. Familiar in a way it couldn’t possibly be.

Voices started shouting nearby, all at once, echoing off the stone. Cloud’s hand went to his sword, curling around the hilt, even as some instinct said _wait_. Because those were familiar too, those voices. Even though they couldn’t possibly be.

Hardly daring to breathe, Cloud crept forward, ducking from corner to corner until he could peer into the central square of a town he had been certain no longer existed. Possibly _still_ no longer existed; he might have been hallucinating, might have finally snapped and was actually lying collapsed in the middle of the Coliseum. He’d been half-expecting something of the sort to happen for a long time.

But he didn’t actually think he could have imagined the scene unfolding before him. For one, the people he recognized weren’t quite the same as they were in his memories and nightmares. They were older, they carried themselves differently, and he could never have imagined Squall with that haircut. The world around him was more solid than a dream, too; the stone under his fingers was rough and dense, scraping his skin when he held on too tightly, and the air was full of a crisp autumn coolness that he hadn’t known to miss until he felt it again.

Against all the odds, it seemed that he was actually in Hollow Bastion, and everyone he’d known--everyone he’d assumed gone forever-- was alive. Aeris was hugging a red-faced Squall tightly; Cid was grinning fit to split his face; Yuffie was shouting at the top of her lungs as she jumped and punched the air. All around the square, other familiar faces were smiling and crying and laughing all at once, neighbours and friends and family united in celebration. They looked happy and whole and, above all, thank Gaia, _alive_. 

Cloud had been so certain he was the last. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, frozen, before the happy reunion inevitably started breaking up, before people turned their attention from each other to the town around them. Cloud was looking right at Aeris when her head suddenly turned in his direction, and Cloud yanked himself back from the corner just in time. Heart pounding, he pressed his back against the wall and tried to breathe through the sudden tightness in his throat that went along with the sudden sting of realization.

They’d see him if he stayed. Impossible to hide for long in a town full of narrow streets and nosy neighbours. And he-- he _couldn’t_ , he didn’t know how he’d be able to look them in the face and let them look at him in return, let them see everything that he’d become. Even though he wanted desperately to go up and touch them to make _absolutely_ sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

He thought about their hands as they’d hugged each other, and then he flexed his own beneath the gauntlet covering-- _hiding_ \-- his left hand and felt talons dig into leather. He remembered Aeris’ bare shoulders, the close fit of Squall’s jacket, and hunched a little further into his concealing cloak.

One of the voices rang a little too close. Cloud flinched, and ran. Out into the wilds, feet instinctively following a path he hadn’t used in what felt like a lifetime, one that took him all the way through the Maw to the looming, battered walls of the castle. There were still heartless in the hills, ones that scattered as he rushed by, but the castle itself was ominously empty save for a slither of movement in the highest windows, a sense of staticky presence that made Cloud’s skin itch and his teeth clench. Irritating, but tolerable. Useful, even, if it kept the rest of the heartless away.

Cloud went down instead, taking the twists and turns of the aqueducts at random until he found a suitably defensible alcove. There he burrowed himself into a corner, put his head onto his knees, and finally let himself _feel_.

They were alive. All of the people he’d mourned and tried to forget-- except for the times when he clung onto their memory so tightly that it nearly choked him. They were _alive_. And still completely out of his reach, but he could live with that.

Numbly, he tugged his cloak aside and confirmed what he already knew. The wing stretched out at his command, only a little stiff after being folded up tightly against his back. He pulled off his gauntlet and studied the grey, leathery skin that began around his wrist and extended all the way to the tips of his clawed fingers. He let himself wonder if maybe it would fade, given time. Maybe he’d go back to being fully human again. Their entire _world_ had been healed, it seemed, so anything was possible. Maybe miracles could happen for him, too, and then he could go home.

Deep down, he knew otherwise, because whatever Hades had done to him after pulling him out of limbo had always felt pretty permanent. But maybe. Maybe he could allow himself that little bit of hope, however futile it ended up being.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there before the rumbling of his stomach drew him out of his own head and reminded him that he’d been tossed out of Olympus with only what he was carrying-- a supply that did not include any food. It was longer still before he was forced to admit that he wasn’t going to be able to ignore the problem. He put off the inevitable for a time by skulking around the castle’s lower levels, but whatever magic had brought their world back from the abyss, it hadn’t gone so far as to restock depleted supplies; all of the storerooms he could access were wall-to-wall bare.

It was distressingly easy to sneak back over the town walls and ghost through its pre-dawn streets. He didn’t encounter another soul, not even when the item store’s unfortunate door gave a squealing protest as he forced it open. He felt vaguely guilty stealing a case of pre-packaged field rations from the back room, but from the amount dust on the top of it, he figured it was unlikely to be missed.

If he happened to pause in a shadowy corner near the wall just long enough for the sun to finish rising and Aeris’ voice to start humming through a nearby window, long enough to see Cid ambling down the street, well. That was a momentary weakness and would not happen again. He was well-supplied from his theft, there was no reason he would have to come back to town any time soon.

Several days later, whatever was living upstairs got _restless_ , and the staticky energy of it sent Cloud running from the castle with his skin crawling and all of his survival instincts screaming at him to _hurry_. He just somehow didn’t stop until he was perched near the Bailey watching Squall talk to some people at the gate. But it was fine, it wasn’t like he was going to go any closer, and as soon as things settled down again at the castle he’d go back where he belonged.

The third time he made the trip, he didn’t have an excuse, which led him to reluctantly admit that _excuses_ were really all he’d had before. Resigned, he crept back towards the town walls and ghosted around outside them, getting as close as he dared without being seen. Someone-- probably Squall-- had finally organized a watch on the outer walls. Cloud approved of the precaution, even if it did make his own life harder; it was better for them to be safe and out of his reach than to leave themselves open to attack.

He went back the next day, and the next. Eventually, the days blurred together and became routine, somehow comforting in its way.

Cloud was just settling into a convenient vantage point one morning when a flurry of motion caught his eye, heralding the opening of the main gate. Squall stepped through, talking to one of his guards. Then, as Cloud watched in utter astonishment, Squall nodded at the guard and walked away, by himself, down the main path that led into the foothills. He had his gunblade slung over his shoulder in a painfully familiar pose, but other than that he had no other visible gear and certainly no back-up to cover his flank.

Cloud barely waited long enough for both Squall and the guard to get out of sight before he swung down from his hiding spot and dashed off in pursuit.

There were still heartless around; Cloud had confirmed that many times over. While they were typically just isolated small-fry, it was still a good idea to walk with caution because occasionally they did group together into a larger nest. Cloud had become very good at sensing where the heartless were lying in wait-- like little patches of cold radiating from the ground-- and he was careful to modify his path around them.

Squall didn’t make even a token effort at such precautions, striding straight down the center of the old cliffside road like it was one of the town’s streets—heading right towards a big jumble of rocks that made Cloud want to shiver just looking at it.

Squall was good with his weapon, for someone who’d been very clear about his intention to never, ever join the military like _certain other idiots_ he knew. But it was obvious to Cloud, even as the first of the Shadows started to swarm out of cracks in the rock, that Squall was no match for what he had just stepped into. Hell, _Cloud_ probably wouldn’t have been able to take them all on by himself; Squall had apparently hit the jackpot when it came to places he really should’ve kept his distance from.

The two of them together, though--

Cloud was already running, but he put on an extra burst of speed when he saw the first Surveillance Robot rise up from hiding. He hit it just as it was revving up the gun aimed at Squall’s unprotected back, sending the blast streaking off to scatter a bunch of Shadows and Neo-shadows instead. Before the heartless could regroup, he swept out his sword and cleared another swath of them away, then stepped forward and did it again. Time blurred into the familiar routine of _swing, advance, brace, swing_ , until eventually the few Shadows remaining seemed to look at him, considering, before melting back into the ground and disappearing.

Belatedly, Squall whirled around with his gunblade up and ready-- caught sight of Cloud and stopped cold, weapon frozen in midair for long seconds before drooping towards the ground. Squall looked utterly dumbstruck, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. It was almost enough to shake Cloud’s focus-- Squall never showed that much emotion without significantly more duress from Aeris-- but only _almost_. He dodged around Squall’s dropped guard to cut down the last cluster of Shadows that hadn’t figured out all of their fellows were retreating. Squall didn’t even seem to notice the threat, his gaze never leaving Cloud.

Then they were alone on the side of the cliff, and Cloud didn’t have the heat of battle to distract him anymore from the fact that Squall was _right there_ , staring at him, and that a significant part of Cloud himself was quietly panicking as a result. It took Cloud entirely too long to convince his body that the fight was over, that it should relax and let go of its death grip on his sword, but eventually he managed to lower the weapon. Managed to turn back towards Squall, though he couldn’t quite meet Squall’s eyes.

“What the hell were you thinking, coming out here by yourself?” Cloud asked. Irritation was good, he could use that to stave off the tight feeling in his throat and chest. His voice was rustier than he was used to; even with how much he had kept to himself on Olympus, Phil didn’t let anyone off without conversation forever. But Cloud certainly hadn’t had anyone but himself to talk to since then.

Squall didn’t even notice the question. “Cloud,” he whispered, still staring. Then he seemed to shake himself and finally come awake again, looking at Cloud with an actual _smile_ starting to spread across his face. “Thank Gaia. You’re _alive_. How did-- where the hell did you get dropped, that you’re only getting back now?” He immediately shook his head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter right now, you can tell us later. Just wait until Aeris gets a hold of you, she’s been looking for an excuse for another _family dinner_. Now that you’re back--“

“I’m not,” Cloud managed to cut in. “Back. Not going back.”

“What?” Squall snorted, incredulous. “What, are you just going to sit out here, carve out a cave, live like a heartless?”

“It’s worked for me so far.”

It took a moment for that to sink in-- and then Squall’s expression closed off into something flat and-- and _betrayed_ , for the split second before Squall hid it all behind a scowl. “You _asshole_ ,” he growled. “It was you. The entire reason I’m out here looking around is because Aeris said she felt something, something she couldn’t quite pin down, and it was _you_ this whole time, wasn’t it? You’ve been hiding out here for _weeks_ and not told us.”

And then Squall was stalking forward, hands clenched at his sides, looking incandescently _furious_. Cloud took an instinctive step back, feeling that anger like a physical blow as Squall advanced on him. “How _dare_ you,” Squall shouted. “Aeris _cried_ over you. We _all_ mourned you, and you just sat out here and _let_ us.”

Cloud’s mouth was too dry for words, even if he’d had any kind of defense to offer, and so all he could do was stagger backwards as Squall closed in and shoved hard at Cloud’s shoulders. “Why the hell would you do that?” Squall shoved at him again, hard enough to bruise the person that Cloud had been before. “ _Why_?” Another shove; another staggered step back.

Events happened very quickly after that: Cloud’s heel caught on a patch of loose rock, and then slid onto nothing at all. The rest of him followed quickly after as the cliff edge that neither of them had been paying nearly enough attention to reared up and bit him on the ass.

He instinctively threw out the damned wing to catch himself, slowing his fall just enough that he could probably have recovered, caught the edge, hauled himself back to solid ground. But Squall’s white-faced look of utter horror kept Cloud’s arms numb at his sides long enough that he kept on falling instead, leaping away down the slope in a way that no one without flight assistance could hope to manage.

If Squall shouted after him at all, Cloud couldn’t hear it over the clatter of rocks and the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears. As soon as he got his feet under him, he started running, and he kept on running until he had buried himself in the deepest corner he could find, trying to forget the memory of that look.

He settled in-- and waited. If they were going to come, it was only a matter of time. He’d left a pretty clear trail as to where he was going; running a straight line towards the castle hadn’t been smart, but strategy and common sense had not really been his priorities at that moment.

He heard Aeris long before she came into view, her footsteps echoing through the tunnels, somehow bringing the scent of flowers down into the dust and mildew. It shouldn’t have been a surprise-- once you were hers, she never completely lost the feel of your heart. Even if, apparently, you’d been made half-demon and were determinedly hiding from her. She’d apparently felt him ghosting around the edges of the town even through the camouflaging noise of hundreds of other hearts. Once she’d gotten close enough to the castle, she’d probably been able to follow Cloud’s presence as clearly as if he’d painted arrows on the walls for her.

“Cloud?”

Eventually, she appeared at the end of his hallway. She took a few steps past the corner and then paused, her hands coming up, her feet dragging on the floor with each step. It was, he realized, very dark in that part of the corridor. Too dark for her to see her way forward anymore, though not too dark for him. Apparently his eyesight had also been affected by his _transformation_ ; he’d never had reason to test it on Olympus. He wondered if his eyes would shine at night like an animal’s. Wondered if she could see it from there.

Aeris’ seeking foot kicked a stone, sent it skittering. She jumped and then settled with a huff. “Okay, that won’t do. You’ll just have to come to me from here.” She backed up into the light, settling down carefully onto a ledge. “I just want to talk to you. You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to. Though obviously I’d prefer it if you did.”

She was quiet for a moment, looking down at her clasped hands like she was collecting her thoughts. “I’m glad you’re all right,” she said quietly. “We all thought-- well. You weren’t there, after we all got tossed free somehow, after the world lost its heart. We ended up in a place called Traverse Town-- you should have seen it, it was the strangest little mish-mash of worlds, but very welcoming. It’s gone, now; I think when the worlds were reformed, they had to take back the bits of themselves that had gone into making Traverse Town. When the town started breaking up-- it was terrifying, it was our world being destroyed all over again, and that was a moment I never wanted to relive, let me tell you. But Traverse Town was a place created from the bits and pieces of other worlds left over, and all of those bits were going back where they came from, where they belonged. So I suppose in the end, it was worth it.”

She was still staring sadly at her hands, and sitting so huddled on her ledge, lost in the dark, that Cloud couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled himself up and moved out of cover into the open hallway, not all the way into the light but close enough that she could probably see him as a darker shadow amongst the black. All she did was smile and keep on talking. “And then we woke up here. All of us that were in Traverse Town, we were just-- here. And other people, people we’d thought we lost, they were waking up around us like nothing happened. They didn’t even remember being gone. It was a miracle.”

She paused, looking his way, and when she continued her voice was softer. “We remembered, though. Those of us that made it out, and returned-- we remembered every missing face. Not everyone-- not everyone made it back. I think that some people’s hearts were just too torn up by the heartless to be made whole again, not even by the power of Kingdom Hearts. We thought you were one of those.”

She straightened in place, her lips pinching in a frown. Cloud hunched his shoulders automatically; when Aeris felt the need to chastise you, you bowed your head and apologized and took whatever penance she decided to give out, and that was just the way things were. Even now, apparently. “So tell me, mister. Given all of that, why in Gaia’s name would you think we wouldn’t be glad to see you alive, hmm?”

There was an echo of sorrow in her voice that made Cloud’s shoulders try to hitch up even higher. He took a deep breath and forced his voice to work. “Squall told you,” he said. He was close enough to the light coming around the corner that when he waved awkwardly at his shoulder, he knew she would see it. “About me. About--” 

She nodded. “What happened?”

He gave a stiff, awkward, shrug. “I don’t remember. I don’t know what happened here, at the-- at the end.” Just that it had hurt. It had hurt _a lot_ , and then it had been dark and he’d felt like he was drifting apart, drifting away into the blackness. Fading. _Some hearts were too torn up_. Wouldn’t surprise him if his had been in pieces.

And then he had been grabbed and pulled away and forcibly dragged back out of the darkness to find a witch and a god leaning over him. “I woke up in a place called Olympus. There was-- he said he was a god. God of the Underworld. He put me back together.” Used his power over the dead and a few of Maleficent’s borrowed spells to seal the cracks in Cloud’s heart and fill in the missing bits, sending a strange, cold energy worming through him and _changing_ him. Like he was one of Hades’ own imps to be built from the ground up. “Clearly there were a few other things thrown in, in the process.”

Not that it had mattered to him, at the time, because _nothing_ had mattered to him at the time. He was alone, everyone he'd ever known was dead, his entire _world_ was gone. It wasn't until much later on, watching that moment of reunion in the town square, that he’d truly had to face how much of a monster he'd become.

There was only sympathy on her face, when he dared to look. She held out her hand towards him. “I don’t care,” she said plainly. “You’re here, that’s all that matters. The others won’t care either, they’ll be happy to see you, no matter what.”

Cloud flinched back, shaking his head. “You didn’t see Squall’s face.”

“I thought I’d just shoved you off a cliff, you idiot,” Squall’s voice, low and tense, came from somewhere very close by. “How was I supposed to look?”

Cloud jumped back-- he’d let himself get distracted by Aeris, which was stupid, because now he was too close, there’d be no getting away-- because sure enough, Squall was around the corner and moving right past Aeris before he’d even finished speaking. He didn’t hesitate before striding into the shadows, straight towards Cloud. “You’re a _moron,_ ” Squall snarled, not quite yelling. Before Cloud could decide how to react, Squall reached out and grabbed the front of Cloud’s cloak, pulling Cloud into a vicious, unbreakable hug.

Squall was shaking.

So was Cloud himself, actually.

Squall was _there_ , he’d come; he’d seen the wing and he’d come anyway. And Aeris was still there, too, moving closer step by careful step until she could tuck in under Squall’s arm and hug them both at once, and Cloud was shaking hard enough by then to practically come apart but they held him together between them until it eventually passed.

“Come home,” Aeris said into his shoulder.

Cloud took a deep breath, let it out with a shudder. He nodded, and let them lead him out into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that while this fic is not explicitly shippy, the sequel is. So if that's not your thing, you may want to just stop here and imagine everyone living happily ever after.


End file.
